


Eyes Only For Her

by HarveyDangerfield, Venn



Series: Five Needs Some Love [4]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, First Dates, First Kiss, First Time, Insecurity, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Unconventional Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:53:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27695863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyDangerfield/pseuds/HarveyDangerfield, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Venn/pseuds/Venn
Summary: Five and Dolores had been in love for years before they finally decided to take their relationship to the next level, but Dolores is plagued with insecurity and old fears that get in the way of her happiness with Five.Come hell or high water she's GOING to get that kiss.
Relationships: Dolores/Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy)
Series: Five Needs Some Love [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1905880
Comments: 10
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i want to make it clear in this fic that Dolores is a mannequin! this isn't an au where she's a lost soul or an alien or a time traveler or anything, she really is just an incredibly detailed figment of Five's imagination. Any mentions of her moving or touching things are all purely in Five's head!

Distracted, that was the word for it. Five had been distracted.

For the better part of three months, Five had been trying to wrack his brain around the question of Dolores. What she was, where he stood with her, what she meant to him-- what _he_ meant to _her_. It was a question as nebulous as loving someone ever is, the terrifying free-fall that came from doubt and insecurity. Two things Five had thought he'd dropped by the time he turned ten.

His whole life, Five has known what to do and how to do it. He knew how to succeed under Reginald Hargreeves' rule and he knew how to prosper during the apocalypse. Five had proven that over the lonely ten years since he'd arrived here, had risen to the challenge of 'sole survivor' in more ways than one, touring and scouring the planet for any sign of life, always bringing his wagon and his steadfast companion, Dolores. 

But what happens when Five begins to want more from her? What is the protocol that follows when Five begins to realize his interests are so far outside of academic, his emotions so much deeper than platonic considerations-- What is Five expected to do? How is he expected to move forward? Can there be a forward, when Five spends so much time looking behind himself, hoping to meet her eyes or notice the curve of her hand pointing out something delicately on the side of the road, any whimsical thing that caught her eye--  
  
Except this time when he turns he gets a face full of something else. It was a gust of wind, laden with what felt like millions of tiny knives cutting against his face. Five quickly ducks his head and yanks at the hood tucked behind his head, "Dust storm, Dolores! Get down!" He calls behind him, pulling the goggles around his neck up over his eyes and turning to help her do just that, only to find her gone. The red racer, her throne, was already sinking back down the highway they had just spent the better part of two hours traversing. 

"DOLORES!" Five shouts, teleporting quickly to her side, to grab desperately at the wall of the little red wagon-- even as the back wheel tips over the edge, leaving the entire thing to careen to the side and risk the inhabitants within, threatening to spill the entire wagon onto the abyss of trash and demolished cars below.  
  
He hears her yelp of fright as she tips backwards off the edge, her frozen hand unable to reach out and catch herself. He's there to make up the difference in the same way he always is, there to protect her and take care of her-- but she sees him topple dangerously over the edge, teetering on the ledge of the overpass. Her body may be made of plastic that can be dented, melted or scored without pain, but _his_ body is soft and bleeds in that charming way that worries her so much. 

Her hand detaches from the wrist as he tries to catch her, and she falls. Five sees it happen like it's in slow motion, her body sinking down into the dust and wind, and hitting the asphalt two dozen feet below with a dull, hollow thunk. She bounces slightly on the pavement and rolls across the ground, her shirt tearing and her arm detaching from her socket, held in place only by the sleeve of her blouse, and Five is left to duck behind the wall of the overpass as a particularly brutal wave of dust nearly knocks him off his feet. He can hear the painful sound of her plastic scraping across the asphalt as she's tumbled and assaulted by the storm he failed to save her from. 

The worst part is that he can _hear_ her whimpering below, just barely audible over the howling of the storm. He could practically feel the fingers of her hand curl around his, still clutched so tightly in his palm, like she's trying to reassure him that everything will be okay.  
  
Five can't do it. Practicality be damned, Five can't sit tucked in relative safety while being forced to listen to the woman he loved whimper and grind in the wind-- 

The woman he _loved_. Well, Five thinks bitterly, there's one question answered.

Her hand still clenched in his, Five stands upright, the fabric of his hood whipping in the wind, dust and sand and soot hitting the back of his neck enough to hurt. He wraps the fabric of his cloak around himself tighter, and without hesitation teleports to the street below. There's already a thick swath of dust covering the road, already enough to be dangerous if he didn't find Dolores. He thinks about her suffocating, buried under pounds and pounds of sand, and his heart breaks and thuds with panic. For a horrifying second, Five thinks he can actually hear her doing just that.

The thudding warp of his powers is inaudible through the whip of wind and sand, scattering across the debris as Five begins to teleport where he'd heard her last, looking for any discernible sign of her existence. Five lands, only to be buffeted by a wind that nearly takes him off of his feet, making him stumble before teleporting again, blown about like a kite on a string. 

"Dolores!" Five shouts as he slams his back against a semi-truck to catch his breath, the hand holding hers shaking with unspoken nerves and unfelt fear, "Dolores, if you can hear me, try and wedge yourself really high! Dolores!" Five turns and spots just a glimpse of her remaining arm, but a glimpse is still that, and he's immediately back into the fray, tearing through the street.

Five's hand curls around Dolores' as his knees hit the ground, and as he pulls her free of the sand dune she'd been trapped in, he curls around her protectively himself, closing his eyes as another rush of sand and wind overtakes them-- but at least this time she's cradled in his arms.  
  
She tucks her face against the side of his neck as he teleports them behind that same downturned semi, the wind howling around them, her arm hanging limply in her sleeve. She's been battered, she'll have new scars across her smooth plastic skin from this, but his hand across the back of her neck is a comforting weight, and she sighs against him. 

"Are you okay?" she asks, her torn blouse fluttering in the wind and hanging off her shoulder. He can practically feel her shivering against him, leaning into him like she wants to live inside his ribs. He would probably let her, if she asked. "You aren't hurt, are you?"  
  
"Don't worry about me," Five says brusquely as he draws his knees to his chest, for no other reason than to give Dolores something to lean against, further protection against the buffet that still rains down on them. It casts the entire street in an eerie gray haze, the kind that came from an overcast, snowy day. Usually Five would _wish_ for snow in these circumstances, but at this point he knows that the snowy days-- few and far between as they were-- were almost worse than this. 

Leaning back, Five messes with the goggles over his eyes, the only thing allowing him not to be blinded by dust ten times over. There's what appears to be a rash across his neck, a symptom of going out in the dust storm. It wasn't, in fact, dust at all-- But rather hundreds of minuscule cuts, all due to the fury of the wind. His fingers smooth over her scalp gently, comfortingly, "I'm just glad you're okay," He murmurs, voice soft, "I heard you get knocked around down here. Anything broken?" Five glances down at her worryingly.  
  
"Just scraped up," she answers, those placid eyes focused on him, her gaze soft as always. She can always calm him down with those gentle eyes, pull him out of his deep and tumultuous thoughts with nothing but a glance. "My shoulder is dislocated... and you still have my hand," she reminds him, her tone playful and teasing, as if the world itself isn't trying to whip up a tornado around them.  
  
True to form, Five's breaths do begin to even out as she watches him with the serene kind of peace that comes with safety-- or maybe that was just how she always felt to Five. Safe, secure; Dolores had become the glass by which Five measured his own happiness. He doesn't find himself laughing now, ducking his head as he reluctantly pulls her hand out of his swath of fabric, the faint trickle of sand brushing off of him as he moves. He stares at her hand for longer than strictly necessary, at his knuckles gripped white on her skin.

"I didn't mean to let you go," Five mutters as he begins to set Dolores right, pulling her joints back into place and setting her hand back into her arm with a click, the joints fitting snugly into one another after all this time, "I thought I had you, I never would have..." His voice is tight, chest suddenly thick with worry that crashed hard down onto him. "Sorry. I never meant to let you go."  
  
She isn't foolish. She knew what Five meant to her years ago, long before he even began torturing himself to try and find answers. She's heard him pacing around outside their camps while he left her by the fire, thinking she was asleep. She heard him rehearsing his lines, desperately trying to concoct the best way to confess to her the thoughts and feelings that have been building for years. She's been patient, letting him take his time, letting him find his way, but it's been months now of this and she can see the way it's tearing him up. She can feel it like it's in her own core. 

" _I_ let go," she admits, softly. "I'd never forgive myself if you fell with me."  
  
Five's head snaps up at that, brilliant green eyes meeting their softer, gentler counterpart, "What?" He asks, the wind knocked out of him, "Why would you do that? You could have been buried, or shattered--" Five wasn't so stupid to think she could get killed, not properly. She didn't have a heart like he did, or any of the soft, squishy stuff that usually hurt so much from a fall. She was, arguably, much harder to kill than Five. But the ways she could be destroyed would kill her just as effectively. Hard plastic on a harder road meant shattering, it meant splintered limbs or a broken skull, and who even knew how she could exist like that, if she'd be in pain. He wouldn't even allow the chance.  
  
"So could you," she whispers back, barely audible over the wind. They're sheltered from it mostly behind the semi, but even still it whips around them, furious and wild and threatening to rip her from his arms. She knows he wouldn't let that happen, safe and secure in the circle of his embrace, propped between his knees and his chest so he makes up her entire world. He has since she met him, if she's honest with herself.  
  
A sharp click of his tongue his response, looking up at the sky, barely visible through the dust storm and his goggles. Shaking his head off, Five adjusts the hood across his hair, jaw working as he sits without answering. It happens like this, sometimes, his emotions too big for his words, the things he wants to say caught in his throat, somewhere near his adam's apple. Five doesn't know what to say, how to phrase it, and so he just looks pained, shaking his head with a resolute, stubborn, "It's different."  
  
"You're right about that," she says, her tone almost scolding, fixing him with a serious look. He doesn't see fear in her eyes often, she's always so brave, always been his rock. The way she's looking at him now, the emotion shining in those pale green eyes makes his heart skip a beat. "You don't think it drives me crazy, Five? If I fall, if I'm hurt, you can come after me, pick me up, dust me off, put my arm back in my shoulder, patch up my scrapes and holes-- but what happens if it's you? What if _you_ fall? I can't save you, Five, if something happened to you I couldn't do anything but watch you _die_."

Her voice hitches, and there's a beat where he just listens to her breathe unsteadily, wobbling and soft like she's trying not to cry, before she finally speaks again, and there's a tearful tremble in her voice. "So _yes_ , I let go."  
  
Dolores' words hit Five like a truck to the chest, all the air leaving his lungs at once as he exhales, looking away like a scolded dog. He sinks, but despite his posture never lightens his hold on Dolores once. He doesn't pull away, doesn't let her lean against him, but keeps her clutched tight to his chest. Regardless of how he felt, Five would always hold her in this way, like she was the most important, most precious object left on this burning hellscape of a planet. 

"I wouldn't leave you alone," Five says, breaking the fresh silence that stretched between them like a rubber band, taut and elastic. He hated the way that sort of silence stuck with him, made him sick someplace behind his sternum and ribs. "I can take care of myself. You know that." It's a weak protest at best. Dolores had seen what happened when Five grew sick, where even her sternest reminders couldn't get him to eat and drink and she had to resort to drastic measures just to keep him functioning.

Still, it hurts to look Dolores in the eye, even after his argument. She's right, he knows it, as much as it might sting him to admit-- just as much as he knows that he'd never let Dolores go alone, even for five minutes, not as long as he had breath.  
  
"You're my _world_ , Five," she tells him softly, and he swears he could feel her hand close around his arm, where her plastic fingers are resting against the fabric of his heavy jacket. She leans into him, her chin against his shoulder, her face against his neck as he cradles her there, holding the back of her head. He makes her feel so safe, so cherished in his arms. "I couldn't live without you. So I won't be fielding any criticism at this time, thank you."

She means it literally, of course. If he dies, she will too. She lives with him, within and around him, every step of her life entangled with his, she built a home somewhere between his head and his heart and the day he takes his last breath, she will too. But she also means it figuratively-- without Five, her life would have no meaning. She needs him just to feel alive.  
  
It's not about that, though. Five knows that to his core. Of course there are some relationships he would consider symbiotic, perhaps even parasitic in nature, but Dolores was never one of them. Although her life was entwined with his, it was not a fact she took for granted, nor one she used for her benefit. He needs her as much as she needs him. Even just the simple touch of her hand, her soft breath across his neck, had Five's soul singing more than it had in months. Sick, maybe, considering the potentially one-sided nature of their relationship.

Five could feel the words bubbling to his lips, could feel the possibilities of his plans slipping out the window. Dolores deserved the best, and Five was going to ask her out during a dust storm? He hadn't even begun picking up their equipment, and he wanted to pretend like they could go on a date? But his gut shoves him forward, while his throat closes to dissuade any words from coming out.

He manages to smile, a bit tightly, uneasy despite her joke. Five looks away, shame making his face burn and his frown sink harder onto his face, "I'm.... Glad you're safe," Five says finally, in lieu of the hundreds of things he wants to say, instead.  
  
Dolores knew what he wanted to say. She could feel it buzzing at the back of his throat, hear it in the tone of his voice. She knew what he was going to ask, held her breath in anticipation for it, and then... sighs softly when he falls flat, just short of the finish line. She's waited so long for him to ask her, to cross that line between friendship and-- well, she doesn't want to presume. Whatever he would want that next step to be. She could practically hear it whisper on the breath that leaves his mouth, but he trips over himself and gives up. 

Well, she can't wait around for him forever. She tried to be patient, tried to give him the space to man up and ask him herself, but if even _this_ wouldn't be enough to urge him forward, she doesn't want to know what it would take. So she'll do it for him, and he'll thank her later. 

"Do you want to get dinner sometime?" she asks, fully aware of the absurdity of the question. Hunkered down in a sand storm, in the middle of an apocalypse where 'getting dinner' involves hours of hunting and trapping enough rats to cook over an open flame, and she doesn't even _need_ to eat. But the irony of the question is just as intentional as the asking, itself.  
  
The expression on Five's face is mirror enough to how he was feeling. Astonishment flashes in his eyes, recognition, appreciation, relief, anxiety, reluctance... each emotion seems to take its turn in his eyes and across the hard, drawn line of his mouth. None seem to last very long, each emotion as fleeting as a breeze. Dragging his tongue over his lip, he finally settles on a smile that he hides by ducking his head, arms that squeeze warmly across Dolores' chest and ribcage, and finally a long, relieved sigh.

"Yeah, I think I could manage that," Five says with a wry, tired smile as he finally leans back. His head hits the truckbehind them, the axel of which was his pillow while the wind and sand whistled around them. It was a good cover, if they'd had a tarp it might even be a place to burrow for a little while: But it wasn't perfect, so it wouldn't do for their final living space.

Opening one eye and looking down at the woman cradles in his arms, Five smiles despite himself, looking embarrassed and shy, "I'll make a reservation."

She knows better than to expect him to get around to it soon, or even quickly at all. He'd taken ten years already to drag his feet on asking her out, she didn't anticipate him hurrying _now_ all of a sudden. They wait out the storm and collect the supplies that had scattered from the wagon, some of which are lost to the winds, but most of which he's able to recover. Back in her wagon, she stares longingly at the back of his head as he pulls her along the roads and paths of blistered NYC.

She doesn't bring it up again, she gives him the time to figure out the perfect spot, the perfect time, the perfect area to set something up-- she'd broken the ice, now it was time for him to meet her halfway. Though her days are filled with longing stares, and he catches her looking more than once. She averts her gaze as quickly as possible, but she knows he's seen her, watching him with the soft eyes of a woman awash in feelings. 

Dolores won't call it love, only because she doesn't want to be the first one to say it, but it's as close to love as one mannequin can feel without admitting it to herself.


	2. Chapter 2

For a boy who had grown up in a home entirely devoid of romance or affection, with the added difficulty of being in an apocalypse since then, Five actually does pretty okay for dates. Their first date is a bit of a awkward affair, Five spending hours leaning over a television set, for it to only display static-- but with a generator, a sparing amount of gas, and an old movie about a notebook, they have their dinner and a movie: even if the film quality is grainy and occasionally they have to turn the volume down to make sure nothing else is following the sounds of their laughter or conversation.

Five spends a lot of the night watching Dolores instead of the movie, not really caring for the people on screen as much as the mannequin tucked firmly against his side. He'd even washed himself and his clothes, combed his hair, and trimmed his beard. He doesn't try to kiss her then, but he thinks about it when he catches her laughing, and for just a second their eyes meet. This, at least, he knew; No kissing on the first date.

The second date went much the same. Five found them a small, sunny overlook for a gentle afternoon lunch overlooking a vast vista of apocalyptic beauty. They drink old champagne that makes Five cough and laugh a little too hard, and his hand lingers a little too long on her waist, but when Five tucks her into bed that night, he still doesn't kiss her. The timing was still wrong. Five was still patient.

Which landed them to the third date. Five had been nervous all day, almost uncharacteristically so. He wasn't usually the type to get nervous, not typically the type to wipe sweaty palms on his thighs or avoid her gaze when she was talking to him. But tonight was the night, a night he'd dreamt about since he'd met her. Their dinner was good. Fish, a rarity, served with some bread made from grain Five had been cultivating for five years now, as well as corn he'd planted just as long ago. It's a robust meal, for them, and Five tastes none of it.

He's too busy looking at Dolores. His eyes linger on her face, his fingers wherever they touch. Her hand, her scalp, her body pressed still-tightly to his side, like they were cuddled together on a bench seat at a 5-Star restaurant, not in the remnants of what looked like a library, surrounded by scorched books and art. They talk and laugh through it as they do, but Five's thoughts are clearly elsewhere, preoccupied by his next plan of attack. The third date going well, meant a kiss. It was what he'd read in every simpering copy of Elle and Cosmo they'd come across, every book on relationships and dating that Five had secretly stashed to read only when Dolores was asleep. 

"Did you see I caught this today?" Five asks, gesturing to his plate where only a corn cobb remained. Food never really lasted around here, especially not when he was the one cooking and eating it, "Fish are getting bigger every month. Soon we'll have a whole school of salmon back in the water."

Is it miserable small talk? Yes. Does Five hate it and wish he could say literally anything else? Yes. Does he have any idea what that 'anything else' could be? No. No, he sure doesn't.

"All by yourself? So strong," she can't help but tease, and though she lacks the mobility to move her arm over to squeeze his bicep, he knows she wanted to, and the gesture is felt nevertheless. She can't often initiate touch with him herself, only when she's jostled or bumped or falls over somehow and uses the momentum or gravity to lean or land on him, but their bond is so close that when she thinks hard enough about touching him, he registers it subconsciously and can practically feel the pressure on his skin. She's been touching him a lot more, since their first date. "You're really getting the hang of that pole."

Five would never be a 'funny person', but with Dolores he can't help but laugh. A short chuckle, shoulders hunching in a gentle shrug, and his head hanging down to hide his pleased smile, Five has to calm the frantic pounding of his heart that occurs whenever Dolores touched him. "Yeah, well, you're always telling me to get a hobby, right?" he asks her gently, and can't help himself when he turns to her. His hand reaches out to trail his thumb over her jaw. It's a fleeting touch, a ghost of one, really, but his fingers nearly go numb with feeling her for the first time-- as if he hadn't spent the last ten years touching her and putting her back together again in every conceivable way. This time, it felt different.

"I was thinking," Five says slowly, clearing his throat of the sudden knot twisting tightly within it, "Maybe next time, you can come out on the water with me. I know you prefer to sunbathe, but you can do that on the boat, too, and.... I wouldn't mind your company," he admits, face heating up further, the slightest of pink tinged across his face and nose.

"So you can tell me all about your lures and tackle?" she asks, her tone playful, and Five feels the ghost of her hand through his hair in time with a breeze that actually lifts his bangs off his forehead, a gesture that feels so real that for a moment of fuzzy cognitive bliss, he forgets that she's a mannequin, that they're sitting in the middle of a ruined building in a world populated by only the two of them. "That sounds fine, but you're going to have to find me a pair of sunglasses, you know I don't want the color of my eyes fading in the light."

"Of course," Five replies quickly, too quickly in his enthusiastic excitement, all semblance of 'cool' redacted as soon as she'd agreed. Even after three dates, his heart begins to pound in his chest when he thinks about her, his brain goes entirely blank, devoid of anything suave or smooth or even _normal_ to say. "But you should know, my baits and tackls are all very important. Each one of them for a different purpose." He glances over at her, eyes shining just a little as he teases, "I'll make sure to go over them with you in detail when we're on the water next. Maybe if you're lucky I'll show you how to string a fishing rod, next. "

"If I'm lucky," she repeats with laughter in her voice. "Oh, you know how much I want to hear about your fishing lures, loverboy, why wait until we're on the water? You could put me to sleep talking about them here and now."

She catches his eye and holds it, her gaze soft in the light of the candles Five had lit to round out the atmosphere of their date. The soft, pale green of her irises seem to glisten and shimmer in the flickering light, which gives the illusion that her eyes are darting over his face, looking for... something. Her expression is too placid for Five to read.

Is this it? Tens of dozens of memories slam into Five's frontal lobe all at once. Remembering stories told by his not-quite mother, Five remembers the enigmatic way she would always speak, when talking about love. Usually one of the girls would ask about it, bright-eyed and curious. Five hadn't cared at first. But now Grace's words hang in his ears. 

_"Mother, how do you know when you're supposed to kiss someone?"_

_"When the time is right, you'll feel it. Way deep down."_

Five was certainly feeling it now. He looks at Dolores for longer than necessary as she speaks, heart pounding loud enough he was sure Dolores would worry, should she get too close.

"Dolores," Five mutters, his voice low as he licks his lip. His voice was far too quiet to be natural, nerves making his throat tighten around the words. Five's eyes slip shut, and shifts, leaning in.

Strong as anything, Dolores feels a surge of unfair panic when she sees him lean in. It isn't fair because she _wants_ to kiss him, she wants it more than anything. But insecurity lances through her when he tries to close the gap between them, fear of not being good enough, of being disappointing, and worst of all the fear of making it real only to lose him entirely-- it's too much for her. Too fast, she needs more time to sift through her feelings. She needs more time.

But she can't bear to just _tell_ him that. To risk hurting his feelings is unthinkable, and worse the idea that he might be annoyed with her for needing more time. She doesn't actually expect he would, he's always been a perfect gentleman to her, but the fear is still there. She needs to stall, but not in a way that indicates to him she has any actual reservations about kissing him.

She thinks all of this in the blink of an eye, so that when he's barely made it halfway closing the gap between them, she halts him with a little giggle and a teasing, "Five, really? The third date kiss? That's so cliché."

And Five, predictably, is brought up short, looking stupid and surprised in equal turn, a confused shine in his eye, the same kind he gets when working on a particularly difficult puzzle. "It's..." Five wonders what he can say that wouldn't make him sound like the mistreated 13-year-old he had been raised to be, as if he wasn't 23 now and figuring things out for himself. As if he could have ever known that kissing on the 3rd date was cliche. "Is it?" He finally manages, sounding like a strangled animal when he does. 

Lithe fingers hook in his collar, and Five tugs at it even as the moisture in his mouth wicks away to nothing, leaving his mouth dry and barren, anxiety twisting ugly in his guts. He can feel it there, her rejection hot like a knife, the edges sharp. If he bore down on the feeling he would surely hurt himself. If he thought about her words too much, he would hurt himself. If he dared to consider the possibility of Dolores not liking his company...

...It would definitely be a painful pill to swallow.

So instead he swallows his own tongue and quashes the ugly insecurities that raise in his chest. "I read that the third date was normal, if things were going well," Five offers in lame, miserably explanation, even as he leans away from Dolores again and stares into the fire crackling in front of them, "Consider me an optimist." It isn't said with any mean sarcasm, or cruel intent. He sounded simply resigned, deadpan.

"Things _are_ going well," she tells him, unwilling to let that sad gleam linger in his eye for a second longer. " _Really_ well, I just-- don't think we need to rush it."

A foolish thing to say, considering they'd already been ignoring the tension that's been building between them since Five was fifteen. It's been a long, long road behind them to get to where they are now, so the idea of not "rushing" is stupid. But she has to stand by it, or she'll seem like she's waffling and making up excuses. She is. 

"Have you ever kissed anyone before?" she asks instead, to try and shift the pointing finger ever so slightly off of herself, lest he scrutinize her thoughts too closely. They share a mind, and there's always been a possibility for them to overlap with one another and read into each others thoughts and feelings, but they've always respected that boundary, and she trusts him not to go delving now.

The thought doesn't even cross Five's mind. Then again, there's not much crossing his mind except his abject failure at the hands of the woman he loved. He replays the moment between them, wonders if he could rewind just a little to stop before it even happens. But he doesn't, he wouldn't. Five would never manipulate Dolores in that way, as much as having an infinite number of redos would be nice.

Also he didn't know how to go back in time. That was a pretty big barrier to that idea, too.

"A couple of people," Five admits. "My siblings. My mom," His gut twists uncomfortably as he admits it. Dolores has heard him talk about his siblings before, she knows their relationship isn't entirely traditional. It shouldn't be weird for Dolores to hear that Five has kissed his siblings before, even if he doesn't exactly go into detail about what kind of kissing it was. Hopefully she didn't ask. He couldn't lie.

Looking down at the slacks he had pressed just for this occasion using an old iron heated over an open flame, Five plucks at the string loose on his frayed hem. "I'm.... sorry, for rushing you. It's just--" How do you tell a girl you've wanted to kiss her since the minute you saw her? "--Something I've been thinking about for a while," Five admits finally, ears tinged pink, absolutely avoiding looking at her.

"I've been thinking about it, too," she admits, her voice soft and gentle. "I just... don't want it to happen because it's the third date and that's when it's supposed to happen, you know? I want it to be... organic."

As if the tension between them hadn't felt organic. She worries she's just digging a deeper hole for herself, but a strong breeze comes by just then and catches the kite of her blouse just enough to knock her slightly off her perch so she's able to close the gap between them, falling against Five's side and resting her head on his shoulder. 

"Just hold me," she murmurs, basking in his warmth against her plastic skin. She'll have to think of a better explanation for her hesitancy for next time, if she feels the same panic crop up. At least next time she'll be able to prepare an excuse.  
  
Five does, and pretends like it's enough to quell the furious ache built in his chest. He holds Dolores close and they quietly talk until the fire dies and Five gets cold enough to re-stoke it, tucking Dolores into bed and following suit shortly afterward. He falls asleep across the fire from Dolores, keeping a watchful eye until he succumbs to sleep, too.


	3. Chapter 3

That's the last time Five tries for a while. Dolores wanted time, and Five was happy to oblige. Time was all they had together, now, and their days were so much brighter now that they'd begun to see one another in a more-than-friends way. True, Five's chest ached uncomfortably when he thought of Dolores and how badly he wanted to kiss her, but it was a carnal hunger Five had lived almost his entire prepubescent life abstaining from. If he hadn't been so cruel or cowardly before as to take what he wanted, surely he could handle it now, as a warm-blooded adult. 

The plan had been to wait until date 10, a nice, even, round number that surely had to confirm Five's dedication to her.... but if Dolores was looking for organic, Five could name a dozen instances off the top of his head that would have been perfect occasions for a lover's embrace. One date they find a herd of actual, real deer grazing in a field that had once been a parking garage, staying throughout the evening to watch them graze for the simple joy of seeing the beauty of life. On another, Five manages to find paint with which to create something for the sheer joy of it, like Dolores had seen now on any of the cheesy rom-coms he had managed to dig up, resulting in a paint fight between the two of them that has Five threatening to rub the drying blob on his cheek against hers. 

Ultimately, Five makes it to the 8th date. Still good, but not quite there. Their dinner had run late, Five's inexperience with cooking showing when they had actual, thick cuts of meat to utilize, but it was a clear night, one of the rare ones they experienced nowadays, and it was beautiful.  
  
They were full of laughter, a bit punch drunk from a stash of hotel-sized bottles of liquor Five had found while picking through the remains of a fancy hotel that he ultimately decides isn't structurally sound enough to risk staying in, but he does pinch a couple nice quilts for the occasion. Laid out like a picnic with very underseasoned venison steaks, Dolores' blouse catches the wind and topples over off the piece of rubble she'd been perched on, landing on her back on the blanket with a giggle. 

"Five, look at the stars," she sighs wistfully. It's taken a long, _long_ time for the skies to clear enough from the smoke and silt that was originally kicked up by the cataclysm to see any stars at all, but lately they've been making appearances more and more often. The moon is visible, shining brightly and too-big in the sky, whatever event that caused it to split in the way it has bringing it a bit closer in the earth's orbit than it had been before. Its bright white light illuminates the entire ruined valley they're currently set up at the peak of, silvery shapes and black shadows patchworking the ground stretching out below them. "I wonder if there's anyone else on Earth who's looking at the same moon, or if it really is just the two of us..."

"There has to be," Five says without a doubt, glancing up at the stars for a second before shifting to lay down next to her. Lifting his arm, Five draws Dolores into his side, protective and warm from the fire and the booze, and a damn good meal. Five looks at the stars like he's told, despite feeling only a pull from the woman beside him. He takes a deep breath into the top of her head, turning to press his nose against her scalp with his eyes on the sky. "There has to be. Some doomsday prepper, governmental agency, something. Someone had this contingency plan. By law of averages, there're probably more people than we think."

Finding them, however, was another issue entirely. Part of the reason they'd been roaming around so much for all these years was Five's futile attempt to find life-- but at least near home, the epicenter of the blast, there didn't seem to be much living. Still, Five was determined. Glancing down at Dolores, Five feels his heart twist in his chest, struck suddenly by the beauty of her face cast both in the blue-white glow of the moon and bathed in warmth from the nearby fire. A stunning display of color, warming her skin, "Do you know any constellations?" He asks, forcing himself to look back up at the sky.

"I know the obvious ones," she admits, embarrassed by her lack of knowledge. But she knows despite Five's incredible intellect, he'd never make fun of her for not knowing things. She'd spent most of her life in a department store, after all. "The Big and Little Dipper, Orion, Ursa Major and Minor, Cygnus and Cetus, the... is it 7 sisters?" she laughs sheepishly, her nose tucked against his shoulder. "How many can you name? They all just look like stars, to me."

Five looks a little sheepish, laughing softly to himself, "There were 88 officially-recognized constellations when I was growing up. I don't know if it changed by this point," He admits, turning back to the sky, "I could name them all if I could find them. One of my brothers, Luther, he was into space," Another distant smile lights Five's face, a memory he hadn't bothered to recall in some time making him sentimental and soft, as well as the weight of her face against his arm. 

"Knowing those is good, though," he says, and is again taken by surprise by how seriously and animalistically he wants to turn to kiss Dolores in that moment. Nothing even serious, a kiss to the forehead, the cheek, the temple-- he would take it. Five can feel his stomach plummet to his toes. He clears his throat. 

"Big and Little Dipper are actually nicknames for the Ursas. The handle is their tail," Five says, "But most people only know those, so you're still doing alright."

"Really? Oh, I feel stupid," she gives an airy giggle, and he can see the way her eyes shine as she looks up at him. He'd recently taken the time to buff her skin clean, something he does every other week or so to keep her from getting too dusty or faded, so he can see all the stars sparkle in the shiny black paint of her eyes. She looks at him like he's the only person on earth, like even if he wasn't actually she would still look at him with those soft eyes all brimming with love.

Five realizes then just how truly little control he has where Dolores is concerned. His gut burns as he turns to look at her, taking in the perfect finish of her skin, the brightness in her eyes, the way her blouse drapes a little low across her elegant shoulder-- Five feels his gut burn in an entirely different way, then, consumed with more than just the urge to kiss her.

"Don't say that," he mutters softly, after a pause far too long to be innocent. Turning, a hand raises to cradle her jaw, thumb grazing across her cheek, "You're not." And, nerves be damned, he leans forward to claim a kiss, unable to help himself and unwilling to try.

Dolores had spent a lot of time dissecting her thoughts and feelings over the last couple of weeks, since she'd lovingly teased Five for rushing in for a kiss. She'd asked herself again and again why she felt the need to push it off, and though she's long since given herself an answer, she finds it to be of no comfort at all now that the time has come again. His touch on her face is warm and gentle, and she wants him to kiss her more than anything-- but that fear rears its head again, big and ugly and demanding her attention. 

Luckily this time, she doesn't have to come up with an excuse. Just as he leans in, there's a bright light overhead, and she gasps softly before his lips can make contact. "Five, look!"

Streaking across the sky all at once, a brilliant meteor shower illuminates the black expanse. If she had a heart it would be slamming in her chest when Five angles his head up to take in the display, and she can only hope that the bitter note of panic hadn't risen high enough in her voice for Five to detect it.

Five looks at what had to be the first visible meteor shower in a decade, but he can feel his gut twisting even as he does. Laying back on the ground at her side, he looks up at the stars with his mind buzzing faster than his words could keep up. Frustration, anger at himself, his impatience, his impulsiveness, all buzz through his brain like a hive of rattled hornets. He fights with himself, wishing now more than ever that he knew how to travel back in time, to undo the shitty mistake he'd made yet again.

And so much like last time, he was unable to do a damn thing about it but look at the stars and hope she didn't mind him keeping her close, the hand on her shoulder tightening like he was afraid she'd get up and run away. Panic settles in his chest, uncomfortable and tight, the thought of losing her and being alone almost too much to bear.

The meteors race across the sky, each massive, big enough to make Five wonder if they were residual debris from the moon, if they would have to worry about more debris being kicked up from the Earth: But for the most part they seem to burn and fizzle out, even if their tails are bright and long. 

"...Sorry," Five mumbles into the air without looking at her, swallowing uncomfortably around the knot in his throat. "I got carried away."

"Oh," she can hear the breathlessness in her own voice as she says it, betraying her racing thoughts and feelings, and she can't help but grimace slightly. She'd hoped he wouldn't say anything, that the shower would have been enough of a natural distraction that he would have let it rest, but she should have known that Five would insist on apologizing like a gentleman. He's too good for her, she thinks sometimes. "It's-- it's okay," she continues, trying to cover up the awkwardness. She hates the look in his eyes as they roam the heavens, hates that she's responsible for putting that look there.

"Okay," Five says robotically, and still can't bear to look at her. The grip on her shoulder tightens, and her side is pressed fully flushed with his. At this angle he can see his jaw work, the muscle straining and clenching, unclenching as his throat bobs and he chews on whatever myriad of thoughts clutter his head. There are a lot of them. There usually are.

 _Is it okay?_ He asks himself without looking. Dolores had asked for space, she'd asked for time and organics. Maybe Five hadn't given her enough. Five dates isn't that much time, and although day and night was a little odd in the apocalypse and time passed weirdly, it'd only been around three weeks since their first date. But Five couldn't help but think about how well it was going. The dates were official only in name, only for the sheer pleasure of asking her for a date and her gleefully saying yes-- but their days were still spent together laughing, cooking, talking for hours and hours on end, working and surviving together. 

Their life had become one extended date. So why was here where Dolores drew the line?

Another silence had hung uncomfortably between the two, the look in Five's eye only growing more anguished the longer he sat with his own uncertainty. Finally, he gives in. 

"Can I ask you something, Dolores?" He asks, and his tone says it'll be nothing good, "And I hope you can answer it honestly. It'd-- Be easier for everyone, I think, if you did."

She'd been lying in silence, willing him not to say anything, not to ask her any questions. If she'd had more time, maybe she could take inventory of her feelings again, with more success this time. She could talk seriously to herself, get over the hurdle she can feel growing in front of every every day that her feelings for Five become stronger. She doesn't know how she could just will away the fear, but she's certain for Five she could and would do anything. 

But of course, he asks something of her, and she knows she could never tell him no. She takes a deep breath, and a soft noise of assent. "Of course, Five," she says, her voice carrying much more confidence than she actually felt. "You can ask me anything. I promise I'll answer honestly."

Five looks pained at her answer, like he'd been hoping she would say no. As if she ever would. He knew better. Staring up at the sky again, Five's mouth pulls into that unpleasantly flat line as it does so often when he's delivering bad news, "Do you want to be with me?" He asks, and it sounds like it causes him pain to do so, try as he might to stop the tightness in his throat from eking into his words. He fails. "If... you want to just go back to being friends. Partners surviving... this. That's okay," Five goes on, "I'd rather not keep making you uncomfortable and just know, if that's the case."

"Oh," she says again, but this time it's a deeply sad noise. 

She wishes he would have just blamed her. She had no idea she was making him feel like she didn't even want to be with him. The problems were so much more complex, there were layers of old guilt and baggage she'd never even discussed with him before. Part of her feels like she should, just to clear the air-- but the idea of broaching those subjects make her want to roll over into the fire and melt away into nothing. She's too afraid of rejection, of the aloneness and oblivion that would come for her if he left her behind. 

This at least, she can do. She can tell him the truth, as her face tucks against his shoulder all the tighter, and though she can't physically put her arm around him, he feels its weight subconsciously nevertheless. She sighs against his shoulder, willing her frozen, useless hand to touch him the way he can touch her. 

"Five, I want to be with you more than anything," she tells him, her voice earnest in the quiet. "Every morning I wake up thinking about what new ways we can spend the day together, and every night I wait for you to fall asleep first just because I love listening to the way your breathing gets deeper. I want to be with you for the rest of our lives. You're my _everything_."

Five's stoic expression breaks a little when he hears that, his mouth wobbling that same bit as his resolve crumbles at her words. He wants desperately to believe her, can hear the affection for him in her tone. But it still leaves the question of _why_ lingering like a bitter cloud in the air. If all that was true, then why was there hesitation? Was there something holding them back? Was there something Five didn't know about her, some hidden anxiety he should have caught onto? 

Turning his head, Five can't help himself when his lips find her hairline. It was devoid of hair save for the engraved divots in the plastic that were meant to simulate baby hairs, but Five didn't seem to notice or even mind. In truth he didn't. He just didn't care what she looked like. 

"Okay," He says finally, voice warm and soft and a little sad against her skin, "It's okay. We have time," And they did. If it was time Dolores needed, it was time Five could give. As long as she still wanted him around, he would be there for her, until she told him no.  
  
She still has a bad feeling that Five is holding onto this, but there's little she can do about it now except improve the experience next time. This time she's determined to figure out her insecurities before Five tries to kiss her again. For both their sake. 


	4. Chapter 4

Dolores knows for a _fact_ that the problem isn't that she doesn't want to kiss Five. She wants to _marry_ Five. She wants to be with him forever, grow old with him and lay down to rest with him when the time comes. Her commitment to him isn't in question whatsoever, and that fact is only exemplified by the giddy thrill that goes through her each and every time that Five asks her on a date, just for the pleasure of letting her say yes. Her assent is always as swift as it is enthusiastic, and after a few more dates go off without a hitch, she can feel Five relaxing again, those fears of her disinterest falling by the wayside. 

Five's creativity when it comes to setting up dates never ceases to impress her. In a world that's all but destroyed, there's very little left to work with, and yet he always finds new activities to unearth and try with her. They wine taste when Five finds an untouched cellar, and sketch one another for fun, and while Dolores can't move her hand on her own, she guides his to render a sloppy but extremely earnest portrait of the man she loves more than anything in the world. 

He takes her sledding when there's enough ash fall to pile up a good layer, and even finds an aquarium that somewhat survived, in which some the wildlife had populated and regulated itself, thriving in its new environment (even if much of it had mutated from the radiation over the generations) but they had a good time trying to name the new species they could spot. 

Before she knows it, date 15 has passed, and unfortunately she'd been having such a good time with him that she forgot altogether that she was supposed to be soul searching this whole time.  
  
Five doesn't. 

Since coming to the barren tundra that was now his home, Five had gone through just about every human emotion one was capable of having. He was fairly certain if there was a lexicon of descriptors for moods the human mind is capable of, Five could accurately detail each and every one inside of himself, and the toll it takes on him outwardly. There's no one better to get to know than yourself in the desolation of the apocalypse, and if there was one thing Five knew, it was that he was in love with Dolores. 

She'd become the reason he woke up in the morning, the reason he bothered to keep warm. She was the reason he cooked, the reason he bathed and the reason he groomed himself what little he could. She was his reason for thinking, for living, aside from the all-encompassing need to return home. Dolores was the reason Five hadn't gotten swept away into the madness he could feel tickling at the edges of his brain, that fuzzy little dark cloud Five attributed to the unpredictability of time travel, Reginald's smug 'I told you so' ringing through his ears on an infinitely mocking loop. 

Dolores had given Five's life meaning on a rudimentary, foundational level, and he wanted to give her the same. 

He spent his days planning events for them to do together. Scavenging missions were always open to detour if it meant Five could possibly source some fun activity for the pair to double back on later. What tiny doubt he had in his mind had been ignored, put aside and grown from. Five was determined to place an offer that Dolores could never refuse.

After scouting ahead one crisp, quiet morning and leaving Dolores to sleep, Five stumbled upon what was possibly the first proper body of water they'd seen in a decade. The ocean had receded from the coasts, leaving barren scrubland in its wake, but the planet had begun to heal-- the environment was returning. Slowly and steadily, but it was returning, and this lake seemed to only be proof of that.

When he'd returned to camp grinning from ear to ear, Dolores had asked what had Five so giddy, and he'd asked her on their sixteenth date on the spot, for that very same night. 

"One more step," Five narrates their movements as he walks with Dolores pressed flush to his chest, one strong arm curled around her trim waist, a calloused hand-- but meticulously cleaned, for the occasion-- over her eyes. "You're going to love this," he whispers in her ear, then finally drops his hand from her eyes, revealing his grand gesture.

The sun is setting behind the hazy, blurry line of the horizon, casting the entire sky a brilliant orange, purple, and scarlet. The light catches on the quiet waves lapping at the shore, sunspots scattering across the surface bright enough that Five has to squint if he looks at it for too long. On the shore and tied to a crude wooden stake in the ground is a wooden canoe bobbing happily in the water. Candles (Or small, makeshift lanterns masquerading as them, Five made do with what they had) litter their path from city sidewalk to the waterline, and Dolores can see from their vantage point that the small boat had already been packed with a thick blanket, and a box of what looked like dinner. 

Five's breath is warm against Dolores' ear, and she can hear how pleased Five is when he murmurs gently to her, "Do you like it?"  
  
"Oh, _Five_ ," she says, her breath completely taken away. She'd heard the soft sounds of something, but hadn't known well enough to recognize them as the sound of water whispering over a pebbled beach. She'd never seen a body of water before, not a _real_ one with moving waves with foam at the edges and everything. They'd learned very early on to stay away from standing water, but this was rolling and cresting and _alive_ in a way that brings tears to her voice. "It's _beautiful_..." 

There's squeaking from overhead, and she looks up to see sunlit seagulls streaking overhead, their wings blotting out the light just enough that rays are cast off of them like pink and gold streamers, and if she had the tear ducts to cry, they would be rolling down her cheeks.

"I've never seen anything like this," she whispers, afraid to speak too loudly and break the magic spell that's bathed this entire area in a glow so profound she forgets for a moment that they're in a wasteland outside of this perfect vignette.  
  
"I figured you hadn't," Five says. It's not said out of condemnation or condescension, not smug or snide, but understanding. He holds her for a second there, tucking his nose into her neck and taking a long, slow deep breath as he bathes in the scene with her. The birds were a nice touch. He didn't even know seagulls had made it. He was glad they did.

Unable to help himself, Five places a slow, gentle trail of kisses across Dolores' shoulder, respectfully staying over the delicate fabric of her blouse, until he pulls away, "Come on, let's go," He says eagerly, and walks down the carefully-curated path to the water. He doesn't rush, doesn't run. He can't trust the shore enough to take his boots off and feel his toes in the sand, but the thought does cross his mind as he settles Dolores into her spot at the head of the boat, adjusting and fluffing the pillows he'd arranged for her like a throne, to keep her up and stable while he pushes the boat off land and hops in, the entire thing wobbling just a little bit.

Five gives Dolores a sheepishly embarrassed smile when the boat teeters with his surprise weight, unearthing an oar from the side, "You okay?" He asks, pushing away from the shore and beginning to paddle as the Sun continues to dip over the horizon, bathing them in more and more dark, the moon already bright on its tail.  
  
"I'm okay," she answers, tipping a bit on the pillows, her hand angling down far enough that the tips of her fingers touch the water, and she giggles softly. "It's warm," she tells Five, looking dreamily across at him. The sun is at her back, facing him, illuminating him from the front so he glows orange and pink in the light. He looks warm and radiant, downright resplendent in front of her as he rows them diligently across the water. Her heart feels full when she looks at him, her chest aching in that way she knows would be a rapid heart beat if she had one. He makes her feel so complete, so safe, relaxed in his presence like a cat in a sunbeam.  
  
And Five looks at Dolores like she's the Universe encapsulated in one woman, "I'm glad." He barely takes his eyes off of her to row, but he stops altogether when they reach a point far enough on the water that the waves don't drag them towards shore. He lets the oar sit in the water experimentally, then pulls it out, inspecting the weathered wooden surface with a critical eye. Glancing up to see Dolores had beat him to it, he dips his hand in shortly after her-- whether he'd considered plastic and wooden compounds reacting differently then soft skin, Five didn't seem to care. Withdrawing his hand a second later, Five can't help but grin broadly at Dolores as his hand comes out scott-free, untouched by corrosive PH or horrible radiation. 

Their little canoe bobs gently in the water disturbed by Five's rowing, and as they even out, Five tips forward, tugging a small basket free from the leg well of the boat, opening it to unpack their dinner, "Before whatever happened, there used to be water everywhere," Five explains, patiently serving Dolores first, her plate of meager greens, what looked like one of the few potatoes he'd managed to cultivate in their garden, corn, and more of that venison. "We never really got to go play in it, but I always thought it'd be nice to have a beach day, you know? Sun, sand, water, your family around you..." He sighs, sounding almost dreamily nostalgic, for thoughts he hasn't bothered to have for a decade.  
  
"There was this model I was stuck next to for an entire summer once," Dolores says, thinking back with a soft laugh. "I think her name was Angela-- we were modeling swimsuits together all season and she would _not_ shut up about how she'd just been driven across the country from california, how she'd been a storefront model right on the pier, how she got to look at the beach and people watch all day. She thought she was _so_ much better than me because I'd never been put in a window display."

She glances back out at the water with a soft smile. "The way she described it, I thought I hated it. I just hated _her_ , so I convinced myself she was just blowing smoke out her ass. But this really is beautiful."  
  
Five scoffs at her story, the picture of a dutiful husband listening to his wife's ranting about inter-office politics. It doesn't cross his mind to be skeptical or dismissive to her story, doesn't cross his mind to be anything other than righteously indignant for the slight Dolores felt at the hands of her peer. "She was wrong, anyway," he says, speaking like he knows absolutely fucking _anything_ about how retail works. He doesn't, of course, but it would be easier to think otherwise, considering the amount of iron matching the steely line of his gaze. "How often did they change out those storefront models? They probably just brought her in to bring people inside, but _you're_ the one people actually look at the whole time they're in the store," Five smiles, very slightly, at Dolores, "I'm glad you like it," He admits, as a shadow cast by the ever-lowering sun begins to crawl up the length of the canoe. "If this is back to sustaining water, maybe other places are, too."  
  
"Maybe we could try to see the beach she was talking about?" Dolores asks, sounding a little breathless at the idea, flustered by all of Five's compliments. "Oh, though that's... okay, probably not all the way in California, it'd take us ages to cross the country like that, but... somewhere like it? On this coast, maybe... do you have any idea how to build sand castles? I don't, but we could try..."  
  
Five's face lights up, a child exhilarated at the thought of a present, the gift being time spent with Dolores-- though to be fair, it seemed highly likely that Five would respond the same at the prospect of spending _any_ time with the woman across from him. He was considerably whipped. 

"No idea," he admits, and doesn't seem to have an issue admitting it, "I'm sure we could muddy our way through one, though. With your vision and my technical ability, we'd be unstoppable."  
  
"Flatterer," she smiles, casting her eyes away from him, unable to look at that dazzling smile anymore, it makes her whole soul flutter inside her. "I would like that... I mean we _could_ go all the way to California... there's no reason we couldn't, if you wanted to. I've never been to that side of the country, I've only worked in New York since I was made, I've never even left the state."

The idea of taking an entire cross-country trip with Five is exhilarating. Just the two of them, exploring the country, seeing new places, exploring whatever's survived... it would be like a honeymoon.  
  
Five pauses halfway through opening a leftover bottle of wine to look at Dolores thoughtfully, eyes narrowed in thought, "You know, there are a few cars we've passed nearby that don't look like they're in too bad shape. If I could siphon some gas from somewhere, maybe read up on engine repair and maintenance, that might be a fun idea," he says. His voice is far away, mind already wrapped up in numbers and lists of equipment he may need for such a venture. 

"Of course, a lot of it might all depend on how this affected the mountain passes," Five pours them both wine before setting the bottle down and raising his glass to her, tapping them together, Dolores' set into a little notch in the wood, so perfectly fit it looked like Five had carved it himself-- planning this to the very last detail, including the clink of their glassware. "To a new adventure," he offers, smiling, before taking a drink.  
  
The way he always effortlessly took her unique anatomy and disabilities into account never ceases to amaze her. Never once has he made her feel like a burden for the extra work he has to do just to consider her needs. He does it without struggle or comment, like it's second nature for him to do these things. Whether it's carving a cup holder into a boat because her hand is too stiff to hold it, or peeling out the sticky tape on the hem of a strapless blouse to sew to the inside of a hat so it'll actually grip her plastic head instead of sliding off when it's cold, or installing a seatbelt into the wagon so she wouldn't fall out-- he always went out of his way to account for her needs without her even having to ask. 

It strikes her again how deeply and outrageously she loves the man across from her, and she's silent as he eats dinner, just watching him with soft eyes radiating a worshipful sort of adoration and a quiet smile.  
  
His smile is small and private as he looks down at his own meal, beginning to eat with the same barely-contained manners he always does when they're on a date. Without the official title of a date, meals exist as mostly a means for Five to shove as much food into his mouth as he's allowed in as short a time span as possible, inhaling his food often to the scolding of Dolores. On dates he at least tries to remember how to act civil, uses silverware and everything. He even put on a tie for the occasion, he didn't want to get potato on it-- who knew if they could even clean silk in the apocalypse.

"It's only going to get better from here," Five says, swallowing through a too-large bite and looking up at the sky, now tinged more blue-purple than reddish orange, the sun obscured over the horizon, leaving on the remnants of its glow, "More reliable food, more stable weather, less storms... we might be able to really build something. Maybe those other people who survived will come to _us_ ," Five looks across at Dolores, imagining her in the landscape of society. The vision fills him with an emotion he can't place, surprisingly. 

Five looks back down at his plate, fingers picking at the piece of dried venison, tearing it apart with his fingers before saying quieter, "Or maybe we stick to ourselves."  
  
"I wouldn't mind if it was just the two of us..." she says softly, desperately wishing she could sit up and reach across the boat to take his nervously fidgeting hands. She can't, but he feels the pressure of her touch anyway, and knows that she wanted to. "You're all I need, Five... you're everything I need to be happy. I could have nothing else in the world, but if I had you, I'd still be the luckiest woman on earth."  
  
Those bright eyes flick to his hands, to where he can feel her skin on his, even if he can't see it. His hands squeeze around nothing, holding her close without holding her at all, "You know, I've thought about what would happen if we ever actually met someone else out here," He admits, voice low as his hands smooth over hers, still an apparition only felt by the two. He looks up, brilliant green eyes meeting hers, pale like the seafoam edging the beach, "I don't think I'm a big enough man to share you."  
  
That makes her giddy, a smile slowly spreading across her face and she ducks her chin away from him, shy and absolutely struck by how handsome he is. She gives a soft, girlish giggle, before her gaze flicks back over to him. He has a way of making her feel like even if she wasn't the only woman in the world, with him she would still feel like she was. 

"Would you fight for my honor?" she asks. "If another man looked my way?"  
  
Five tilts his head to her, eyes narrowing not out of skepticism or apprehension, but as though he were considering whether or not he could tell her the whole truth. "Dolores," He says finally, his voice little more than a rumble in his chest, "I would tear the moon apart if I thought it was getting any ideas." 

That's the look in his eye. Hunger and a slowly-burning possession, eyes fixed on Dolores and devouring her where she sat. Maybe he thought he was being subtle. Maybe he thought he had a better poker face. But his eyes lingered on her face, her neck, the slim line of her shoulders, and Five can feel his entire body burn in response. Maybe the moon was an exaggeration. Maybe not. But he _would_ eviscerate any tangible man that even tried to look at Dolores, that much is clear.  
  
That makes her... feel things. Dolores has never really had any experience with arousal before. In her line of work as a model, her entire life was nothing but posing and looking fantastic in whatever outfits she was put in. Her experiences were so incredibly narrow before Five entered her life, breathing new freedom and sensation into her every day. The way he's looking at her now makes her feel tingly and warm, and he can hear the little tremble in her breath as she tracks his every movement, packing up the remnants of their picnic and setting it aside. 

"I didn't know your feelings were _that_ strong," she says, her voice betraying her with a little warble.  
  
"Dolores," Five says, his voice almost pained with it. He has to busy himself putting their meal away, or risk devouring her where she stood. He could feel the blood pulsing in his fingers, could feel the steady beating of his heart against his chest, was sure Dolores could see the steady thrum in his throat. He only spares a brief look up at her before he continues, unable too look at her too long without that hunger settling in his gut and making him think dangerous, reckless thoughts, "You're the only thing in the apocalypse that's worth living for," He admits, bracing himself carefully on the boat as he crawls onto the middle bench that had been occupied by their picnic. 

Reaching out, a warm hand cradles Dolores' jaw, thumb stroking across the beautiful, high line of her cheekbone, "You have been for the last ten years."  
  
Her head is a comforting void of warm fog and buzzing as he draws nearer, unafraid even as the boat wobbles slightly. He hears her swallow loudly, and she could swear she can feel the phantom of a heartbeat pounding in her entire body. Her outstretched hand brushes against his shoulder as she tries to cobble together enough sense to manage a sentence-- but none comes. She can't think of any words to say, any thoughts to express. She just looks at his beautiful green eyes and leans into his hand on her face, so warm and broad and soft in between the callouses.  
  
This close, it's easy to see the effect Dolores had on him. His heavy, if steady, breathing, the thick drag of air through his flared nostrils, all an attempt to maintain some sort of air of control about him, as if he wasn't practically salivating, looking at her right now.

"Here, you look cold," Five says. Dolores doesn't get cold. They both know that. Still, he leans forward with that thick blanket set into the floorboards, picking her up and swathing her in it before pulling her into his lap. He sinks into the footwell of the boat, just as entangled in the thick, warm blanket as she was, her chest pressed to his. He can't help himself, again consumed by the gut-deep hunger clawing through his body, demanding to be satiated, a predator he has no control over, Dolores the only prey worth his consumption. Tongue dragging over his lip, Five looks down at the woman in his arms, those eyes still hungry, barely restrained, "Dolores," He says her name softly, without elaboration.  
  
"Five," she whispers back, her voice so small he almost can't hear it. 

Then he's leaning in again, and those old fears cut through the fog. She'd been so _sure_ this would be the time. She'd felt so safe and soft in his gaze, she hadn't even been thinking about her insecurities as he drew closer, but like a knife she feels a lance of cold go through her. She gasps softly, and unable to think of an excuse she just gives a panicked, tight-voiced, "Wait--"  
  
And like that, the moment shatters, Five's grip on her tightening so hard it feels like she might shatter beneath his fingers, " _Why?"_ Five asks, and there is absolutely no hiding the desperation cracking his voice like wood on a fire. There's pain, agony in his words, deep and longstanding. His shoulders hunch to his ears, his head hangs, and Five can't bear to look at Dolores any more, so he doesn't, holding her away from him now as if to spare her the horror of seeing his face crumble with dismay. 

When Five looks up at her again, his eyes are bright with unshed tears, voice thick and uneasy, a horrible flush risen to the high peaks of his cheeks, "Tonight was _good_ I thought, you... had a nice time, we had a nice meal, I don't--" Christ, he sounds like he's going to cry. Five feels pathetic, small in a way he hadn't for years, "I don't _understand_ , Dolores, please just tell me what's wrong. I need to know, I can't keep-- _we_ can't keep doing this."  
  
"I--" Dolores tries frantically to find the words that would comfort him, but she can't think of anything that would make this better. She hates how she's made him look, hates how small he's become in front of her, hates that it's her fault. "It's-- not you," she says quickly, looking away from him as well, unable to meet his eyes. She realizes how cliché that sounds and makes a soft, miserable noise. "It's my fault, Five, I just-- every time you try to kiss me I just keep thinking-- all these horrible thoughts. They're embarrassing. I should be better than this. You deserve _better_ than this..."  
  
"Just tell me what's going on," Five sounds desperate to latch onto anything, believing her without apprehension or hesitation, willing and able to take anything she offers as fact and run with it. "Please. If I can fix it, I want to. If there's anything I can say, or do, or _be_ to prove to you I'm not going to hurt you-- I know maybe I'm trying too much," It had been fifteen dates and he'd tried three times. He was not trying too much, "I just-- I can't keep.... I'm not a strong man, Dolores." Five admits, and sounds like a fact he had long since resigned himself to.  
  
"Yes you are," Dolores whispers, and he can feel subconsciously as she reaches up to cup his cheek. "You're the strongest man I know. You're kind and you're gentle and you're so smart it's intimidating. I'm in _love with you_ , Five... I'm so desperately in love with you it scares me sometimes."  
  
It causes him physical pain to do it, but Five can't allow himself to be drawn into the alluring warmth of her touch, the softness of her hand making his brain stupid and weak. He leans away. He hates it. "Then tell me why you won't let me kiss you," he asks. They couldn't keep doing this. "If all that is true, if you really feel that way, why won't you let me kiss you? I'm in love with you too, Dolores, I just want to show you that."  
  
"I'm--" she glances up, but can't meet his searing green eyes, so desperate and sad and hurting because of her. She swallows hard, her voice wobbling and unsteady as she continues, tears threatening to choke out her voice completely. "Scared," she finally breathes out, glancing out over the water that's long since gone dark. "When I was-- during my time as a model, I-- I wasn't like the other girls on display. I wasn't good at my job. I was-- I was a _fraud_ , a _failure_ but I-- I pretended I liked the work. I had to, or the other girls would have pushed me off my stand, and if I got scuffed they would have just... put me in the back all alone."  
  
Five's breath leaves him unbidden and uncontrolled, one heavy gust hissing through his teeth, "Are you..." He sounds almost scared to ask, but he had to know, just for his peace of mind, for something, "Are you pretending to like me?" He didn't sound like he could take it if she was. Hadn't they already had this talk? Hadn't she already assured him that wasn't it? And yet here they were, having it again. "It's _okay_ if you only want to be friends, I told you that--"  
  
"What? Oh-- god, Five, _no_ ," she sounds panicked as she says it. "No, Five, no it's not you, it has nothing to _do_ with you-- it's just this old-- ugly, _stupid_ baggage." She gives a squeaky noise as she tries and fails to keep herself from crying. "I just-- I'm-- I'm a _bad_ mannequin," she finally admits, and her voice is pained as she says it. "Every time the employees would come change my clothes I would just-- feel so _exposed_. They'd put their hands on me and strip me down and sometimes leave me for hours in _pieces_ , sometimes they wouldn't even connect me back to the same pair of legs or arms, they would ch-- _change_ me--" her voice is trembling with old trauma she never really processed. "And then the next time it would happen it'd be someone else, someone _new_ \-- they would undress me and-- and _leave_ me-- I don't want to lose you, Five, I'm so scared-- everyone who's ever touched me _leaves_ \--"  
  
"I'm _never_ leaving you, Dolores," Five says, loud enough that it cuts through the otherwise serene silence of the ocean around them, and cutting her off before more panic can close her throat and strike deep into Five's core, relentless and painful. He wanted nothing more than to assuage that fear, to smooth the worry in her voice. "You couldn't _get_ me to leave you, ever." Now more than ever he wants nothing more than to smooth his hands across her shoulders, to pull her over and into his lap, to cover her lips with his and intentionally burn away every other set of hands that had dared to touch her. It takes a will of iron to stay still. He very nearly fails. "Those people didn't know you like I did, Dolores. They were minimum-wage retail workers working a minimum-wage job. They didn't care. They didn't know they _could_ \-- Dolores I'm in love with you," Five pulls away to cradle her face with both hands, now, making her look up at him to see him as he repeats those words, emphatic and insistent. "I've never cared about anyone or _anything_ more in my entire life. All I want to do is prove that to you."  
  
She looks at him with grief in her eyes, and though she can't cry, she can feel the ghosts of tears slipping down her cheeks. "I've just-- been so afraid that as soon as I let you touch me, I wouldn't-- wouldn't be good enough anymore. Everyone at my store always left after they touched me. I-- I know it's because they could tell I wasn't good at my job. None of the other girls were like me, we're _made_ to be undressed and I _know_ they could tell-- how much I hated it--"  
  
Five shakes his head desperately, pained eyes meeting hers and hating what he saw reflected there, the repressed anguish, the hidden pain, the torment he'd been unwittingly putting Dolores through without even thinking about her comfort or her concerns... he'd just wanted to kiss her so bad, to make her his in a way that could never be disputed.... he didn't even think. "You're all I could ever want," Five promises, voice breaking, "I'll never pressure you to take off your clothes if you don't want to. We don't have to go farther than kissing if you don't want. We... we don't even have to kiss, if you really don't want to, but-- I'll never do that to you. I will _never_ do that to you, Dolores." He emphasizes it the second time, the first not enough to drill his point home.  
  
She finds that she believes him. As she looks into his eyes, intense in all the ways that makes her feel safe, she trusts him in this, too. He's never once made her feel forgotten or used, he's never once even mistreated her. She has nothing to fear, when it comes to him. She should have talked about this ages ago, she never should have worried for a second that he would scoff her fears away. 

"I _do_ want to," she says finally, breathless. "I want to-- more than anything, Five. I want it--" She realizes then, just how desperately she truly does. She'd been trying to convince herself that she doesn't, just to hold him back because of her fears, but she does want to. She wants him to touch her, she wants him to undress her and see her. She wants him to be the last person who will ever put his hands on her and see her undressed. " _Now_ , Five," she whispers, desperate for him to close the gap before the spell is broken, before her fears have a chance to try and convince her of their lies again. "Please, Five, please, kiss me--"  
  
He does, not needing the encouragement and not questioning the switch.

Five's hands go firm on her cheeks, still cradling her jaw, and his lips find hers in a hard, urgent kiss. She's a mannequin, he knows, and maybe someone rational would see him kissing only hard, unyielding plastic-- but Dolores is soft in Five's hands, warm in a way he had only dreamed. Her lips give under is and he drags his tongue across her lower lip as his lips move against hers, breathing heavily through his nose. He doesn't close his eyes, but watches her through his lashes, pulling away only when they're both flushed and panting. Five can feel how hungry he is, sure it's reflected in his gaze. He doesn't care. 

Without pause, he goes in for a second kiss, only giving themselves enough time to steal another breath.  
  
This time, his knee shifts forward a little too far on the canoe and it wobbles just-so, reminding them of the fact that they're still in a boat on the water just a beat too late, before the whole thing tips over a little too far, and dumps them and everything he'd painstakingly put inside the boat into the water. Dolores yelps as her back hits the surf, but her plastic body is buoyant as anything, and she pops right back up to the surface before Five even has a chance to kick his legs and breach beside her. He's able to use her as a life preserver as she floats on her back, and she can't help herself-- she starts to laugh.  
  
Doused in water and rising to the surface spitting, panic grips Five's chest as he tips over and teleports back into their boat, on high alert as if they'd been attacked, not as if he'd let his hunger and arousal get the better of him and dump him face-first into the ocean. Thank god it wasn't irradiated or toxic, at least. Then the delicate sound of Dolores' laughter reaches him, and Five looks over at her, looking like a wet rat while she looked immaculate as ever, "Are you okay?" He calls, quickly paddling the boat over to pluck her out of the water and set her next to him, along with their once-thick blanket and picnic. Soggy food was still better than none, and he'd gone through the whole process of curing the meat already..... he blows hair out of his face, the soaked strands swinging back to smack him wetly in the face.  
  
"I'm _wonderful_ ," she says, her voice giddy and airy in her chest. "But you're all wet..." she says, as if she isn't all wet, too. "We should get back to camp, you need to dry off before you catch hypothermia. I'd never forgive myself..."  
  
Glancing over his shoulder, he can see the shore a short distance away, knows she's right. "Frankly, Dolores, I don't think I could ever get sick again," Five admits, finally letting himself smile, coaxed by the lightness in her voice, the almost giddy giggle that now seemed permanently etched into the back of her throat. 

He paddles them back to the shore and doesn't bother unloading the boat tonight. What was important was getting dry and getting warm. He spreads the blanket out on the scraggly cement beside their makeshift pier, does his best to arrange their picnic so it might all get sun as they wake up. He then plucks Dolores from the boat, one firm arm held around her waist as he teleports them both back to his camp, where he sets Dolores upright against one of the thick walls of concrete that served to defend their location, striking the flame and immediately grunting at the waft of warm that fills their little bubble.

"So..." Five says slowly, stirring the fire even as he continues to drip on the ground, soaked from his crown to his toes, "How was it?" he asks, only looking a little smug when he did.  
  
"I've never been kissed before," she admits, still sounding breathless and euphoric. "So I wouldn't know if you did it all wrong... I think I'm going to need to collect more data before I make a professional analysis. You'll just have to kiss me again," she beckons, now that there's no fear of being tipped out of a boat, but as soon as he makes a move towards her she scolds "Ah-ah-- after you get out of your wet clothes. You're going to catch cold."  
  
"You want me to kiss you naked?" Five asks, eyes going wide as his gut bottoms out in a way that's becoming all too familiar. He sucks in a heavy breath, dragging his tongue across his lip, "That's quite the switch, Dolores," He murmurs with that same hungry growl from before, fingers already tugging at the waterlogged silk of his tie, the buttons of his polo after, pale skin bearing itself to her cast orange in the glow of the now-roaring fire.  
  
"It isn't," she insists. "I've always wanted that, I've just-- been afraid..." she trails off as she looks at him, watching him peel off his wet clothes. Her words are distant and faraway as he undresses, like her mouth and brain aren't quite in communication with one another. "I should have just... said something earlier... we wouldn't have had to fumble this much.... I wasn't... you are so...handsome, Five..."  
  
His time in the apocalypse hadn't left him untouched, close encounters with rubble or natural disaster leaving him with a spiderweb of thin white scars across his chest and back, as well as a particularly ugly burn across his ribs. But even if it's nothing Dolores hadn't seen before at least from afar, there's something different in the air now, especially when he stands and tugs his belt free, leather and metal clicking as it hits the ground.

"You know," Five says, still not bothering to hide the goddamn purr his voice had become, "You're wet, too." Tugging his fly open, Five fixes Dolores beneath him with a Look.  
  
"Yes I am..." she whispers, her voice trembling with an entirely different emotion as he looms over her. She might not have the physiology of a human woman, but that doesn't mean she can't get _wet_. Arousal is a state of mind as much as it's a physical condition, and she is wet for the man standing in front of her, in more ways than one. 

That's always been the case, though. She'd watched him grow up into such a strong and capable man, her heart bursting for him every step of the way. She was foolish to ever be afraid that this perfect man would be anything like the people in her life who'd constantly touched her and left her. He's never going to leave her.  
  
He steps out of his pants, leaving him in just his soaked boxers. She'd said naked, but it wouldn't be right to be alone in nudity, and so he kneels in front of her, hands pressing warmly and firmly onto her shoulders, eyes meeting hers, "You don't have to do anything you don't want to," Five repeats, his voice soft and warm, full and hungry, all of this, all at once. "Say the word. I can dry off alone," But even as he speaks his thumbs are tracing slow, languid circles into her collar and shoulder, tips dipping beneath the wet fabric of her blouse, to a space untouched by anything lascivious. So far.  
  
"I know," she whispers breathlessly, staring up at him with those pale blue-green eyes that let him know he's the whole world, to her. She wants to reach out and touch him, to feel his muscles against her body, but she trusts him to touch her in every way she's both always and never been touched. Her blouse clings to her plastic skin, conformed to the shape of her body, her trim waist and the hard buds of her sculpted nipples. Water slides down the side of her neck and pools in the hollow of her throat, the firelight glistening off every droplet of water like a thousand gems sparkling on her skin. "I want it. I want you."  
  
Five's breath catches in his throat, and he leans forward to kiss her again, kneeling on the ground softened by dust and sand and the sporadic, occasional weed defying the odds. His eyes don't wander, though _god_ do they want to, and this time when he kisses her his eyes close as he loses himself in the moment. An arm curling immediately around her waist, Five pulls her up and flush with his chest, able to feel every pebbled line in her skin, sending jolts of hunger straight to his gut. Hand spreading across her lower back, Five braces Dolores' arm around his neck, so she can feel a little bit more stable, his hair catching in the scratch of her nails. 

Five's opposite hand plucks delicately at the buttons of her blouse even as his tongue drags across her lip again, mouth moving hungrily against hers as he kisses her like his goal is to devour her.  
Her whole torso aches for him, panting through her nose as she leans against his mouth. Unable to open hers against his lips, she finds that it doesn't matter. Their minds are so intertwined that like usual, everything she wants to do to him, everything she imagines doing, he can feel as though she'd already done it. He can feel her fingers sinking into his hair, tugging and pulling at the wet strands. He can feel her mouth open, her tongue press into his. He doesn't feel what she doesn't have, even in this half-lucid daydream she has no legs and only one arm, but it's enough. 

"Five--" she moans, her blouse falling open around her bra, the thin lace clinging to her wet chest. 

It isn't that Five has never seen her naked before, but any context that he has seen her nude has been so clinical it practically blocked itself out of his mind. Their minds exist as one in the same, so when she would need to be dressed, her clothes needing to be changed, his hands would act as an extension of hers, his eyes working on a level that was purely mechanical. He never oggled, never desired, and so seeing her now feels like the first time, even if he'd been the one to put her in this bra in the first place. It's a pretty pinkish cream color against her skin, lacey and almost sheer across her nipples, which he can see poking against the thin fabric. He could swear he can see her chest rising and falling with the ragged breaths he can hear her taking.  
  
" _Fuck_ , Dolores," Five whispers as he manages to brush her blouse aside, like it was little more than tissue paper obscuring his real gift. It _was_ little more than tissue paper, in the long run, as ineffective and worthless to him as that thin material he tears through. Groaning against her mouth, Five doesn't waste any time in slipping his hand down the front of her bra to cup her breast in his palm, the hard peak of her nipple caught between his fingers. He pulls and twists, not at all hard but enough to be felt. 

Rocking back to sit on the ground, the bare skin of his back warmed by the fire, Five draws Dolores into his lap, his crossed legs a perfect pillow for her to sit on as his fingers play with her breast. She gives under his hand like the real thing, shudders beneath him like the real thing: There isn't a single scrap of Five that remembers what she is in this moment, and he knows it doesn't even matter. It doesn't. She was as real to him as his own breathing was, as alive and warm and vibrant and hungry-- If her breathless little sigh and that delicious moan of his name was anything to go by.

His mouth moves from hers to drag hungry kisses up her jaw, before his tongue drags into the delicate divot of her throat, collecting the water that had formed there and spreading warmth in his wake, kissing hard, heavy kisses against the line of her sternum, across her shoulder.  
  
"Five-- _Five_ \--" she gasps, his hands on her breasts feel heavenly, even through her bra. She used to be a little self conscious that she wasn't sculpted as busty or curvy as some other mannequins she'd see model alongside her, but feeling the way Five's hand completely cups her breast, she feels now like she was made to be absolutely perfect for him, like whoever first sculpted her mold did so with this exact moment in mind. She feels her body clench, hot and desperate, and she doesn't even need to say out loud that she wants him to take off her bra, he just reaches behind her without her having to say a word, unhooking it so he can carefully pull off her blouse and divest her of the straps. 

He takes care not to pop her arm out of her socket as he undresses her, and then in moments she's completely naked in front of him. She's never been naked for someone she actually cared about, someone who she trusts -- someone who won't leave her after. She's breathlessly excited as his eyes rove over her form, taking in the lines of her anatomically correct form, from the charming vee of the tendons in her neck, to the soft line that dips in the center of her belly that leads to the shallow divot of her navel. Her nipples even have a sculpted areola, slightly raised from the swell of her breast. 

"Five..." she whispers his name again, shy the longer he stares, her arm raised back up to brace her elbow against his shoulder so she can embrace him in kind. "Do you... am I... okay?"  
  
"Are you _okay?"_ Five repeats, his voice incredulous. His eyes are wide as he regards her, drinking in the sight of Dolores' body like a thirsty man given water. He can't take his eyes off of her, and he doesn't try. They flick from throat to navel then back again, marveling at the feel of her in his hand, at the flat plane of her stomach, at the warm breath he could swear she was taking. Opposite hand still braced against Dolores' lower back, Five swears he can feel her breath filling and emptying, grounded as if by his palm, given life by his palm. He can't get over her. His fingers, without any intention, drag gently across one of her nipples, nails gently raking over the tightened bud of nerves, hard enough that it makes her back bow under his nails-- But never hard enough to be mean.

Shaking his head, Five dips his head to press his forehead against hers, eyes refocusing on the woman in question, refusing to allow even an inch of that insecurity to claim a foothold, "You're better than okay, Dolores," Five whispers reverently, "You're the most beautiful girl in the world," He promises, and kisses her again, cock settled beneath her jumping as the soft plastic of her shell grinds against him just right.  
  
She gives him a pitiful little squeak of pleasure when his nails drag over her skin, catching her sensitive nipples as they glide across her body, and when she feels his cock, her breath is completely taken away. He might have technically half-seen her when he'd dressed her on her behalf, but she's never seen him naked. She can feel the hot press of his length through his wet boxers, and as she soaks in the warmth from their campfire, his package feels hotter still under her base. 

"Five..." she murmurs, leaning into him, her bare breasts flattening against his chest. "I want you to make love to me, please... I want you to be my first."  
  
Five leans back to look Dolores in the eye. He wants to make sure she's sure, she's ready-- less than an hour ago she'd been too scared to even let him touch her, after all... and now she wants him to fuck her? Five has to make sure it's what she wants, has to make sure the pace isn't due to his urgency, _his_ demand-- and so he gives her another one of those thoughtful, intense, and lingering looks, catching her gaze and meeting it, before he dips down to take her in again. 

"Okay," He whispers finally, and pulls her to his chest with another searing kiss. They teleport to the mattress Five had claimed as his bed on the opposite side of the fire, and Five lays Dolores down flat against the soft, dirty cotton. Looming over her, Five spreads his hand across her chest, feeling her heart fluttering and her belly tighten where his hand drifted. Carefully, Five moves her arm to her side again, not wanting her to get caught in his hair or him to get too overzealous and hurt her on accident. Leaning back onto his knees, Five's fingers tug at his boxers until he finally frees himself of the final piece of thin cotton, his cock immediately hard and twitching in the air. He'd been waiting a long time for this. It definitely showed.  
  
The truth was, Dolores had wanted this just as long as Five had. But between being trapped in the cage of her own insecurity, and just waiting for Five to grow up enough that a meaningful relationship could be _possible_ , she'd had to wait just as long as he did for this moment. 

"Oh, Five..." she whispers as soon as she can lay eyes on him properly, on the way his length curves up and away from his body. The foreskin is hugging the tip in a charming little ring that she wants desperately to touch, and she measures him with her eye, finding with delight that just eyeballing it, she's almost certain he'll fit inside the hole at the bottom of her trunk, where a peg used to hold her torso to her legs at the hips. 

She wants to touch him, and so he moves his body for her, working together to angle her arm up so he can press his cock against her palm. His hand squeezes around hers, sandwiching his length between their hands, giving her the freedom to touch him as his hips jerk gently in that tight space between their palms. She looks up at him, utterly enamored, her expression serene and brimming with love. She loves him so much she can hardly withstand the pressure of it inside her, pressing out at every inch of her skin.  
  
"Go ahead," Five urges, voice tight and warm even as his breath comes out in a heavy, measured exhale, cheeks expanding as he blows the air out of his mouth. Her hand was so small on his, their palms tightly wound together. Five can feel how warm she is, can feel how soft-- he can even feel the minutiae in her, the excited trembling that seemed to extend from her core outward, fingers trembling as they wrap around his cock, guided by his own hand. His own breath comes out hard, eyebrows furrowing over his eyes that had long since gone dark with hunger and need, watching her through his lashes.

Leaning forward, Five captures her lips in another kiss. This one is slow, though just as ravenously hungry, just as demanding, but this time he takes his time in kissing her. Five's lips gently move against Dolores' own, tongue dragging until he can feel the semblance of her own reaching out to curl against his. The touch makes his cock twitch in their joined hands, the fists around him making Five whimper, " _Dolores_ ," He mutters through grit teeth, "I'm going to move, okay?" And true to his word, their hands begin to move, Five guiding her thumb across his sensitive head-- enough of a sensation that his hips actually buck in response, thrusting erratically into the measured stroke of her hand.  
  
She watches him like she's looking into the face of god, her eyes wide and awed. She tracks his every movement, the way his hips roll, the way his hard, flat stomach flexes every time he breathes, the muscles in his thighs tensing and clenching to power the lines of his body. He looks like a cat, all lithe and sinewy on top of her, and just watching him is enough to take her breath away. 

Dolores is completely overcome with arousal, her core aching in an unfamiliar way. Every new sensation, every new feeling is made in her for and by him, his deft hands carving out room inside her torso to make itself a little home. She's overwhelmed with love for him, with need and desire, and the sting of insecurity is long forgotten in favor of the warmth of trust in him, and the knot of need inside her. 

"Five... you're so beautiful," she whispers as she observes him hungrily, tracing his body with her eyes.  
  
Five's entire body flushes with the compliment. He's never gotten adjusted to the way Dolores can so easily praise him, like it takes no effort to do so. He can't adjust to how viscerally she makes him feel, how very real and firm in his body he is, as his hips continue to thrust and his head dips, tongue dragging lower still, stubbled jaw grazing across her throat. His warm breath huffs over her skin, meeting the cool plastic and dampening it, like sweat breaking across her skin. It might even be sweat. Five would believe it.

Chest raising and lowering in deep, heavy breaths, Five struggles to concentrate, on his words, on the woman in front of him. He wants to fuck her. He doesn't know how. 

"Dolores," Five mutters, entire body quivering as he stills his thrusts with one final, heavy jerk, "Tell me-- what-- how I should..." The warm hand against her lower back dips lower still, curling around her underside to drag his fingers against the rim of her torso, the delicate underside he is so careful not to touch. A finger traces the ring, the slot where she was meant to fit with a lower half, but hadn't. His chest clenches.  
  
She's about to tell him what she wants when his fingers dip down to the base of her trunk, where his fingers have so rarely trailed. It's always seemed too intimate, he often even ties her shirts closed underneath the base of her torso for modesty's sake. She doesn't have legs or nethers to speak of, and so it's the flat bottom of her torso itself that seems like the closest thing she has to a private area-- and he's always respected that. 

Her breath hitches when his fingers skirt across the sensitive base, and she mews like a kitten when those fingertips make contact with the cool ring of metal right in the center of her torso, just big enough for the peg of a pair of legs to slip into, or... perhaps something else. It might be a tight fit, and it's not like she can be stretched out like a human woman, but just by looking at Five's cock in her hand, she's certain he'll fit. 

"My-- my _peghole_ ," she says shyly, like it's a naughty word. "I-- I think you'll fit, if you want to try..."  
  
"Really?" Five whispers like the thought of doing it was filthy, too far. But he was also more than happy to do it. The fingers that had been so tentatively exploring her base curl further around her, dipping until those fingers can trace fully around that cool, metallic rim. He wondered if he would fit, wondered how they would go about it-- they would need lube, absolutely, and Five has to panic as he wonders what they could even use.

Lotion is what he decides, the same thing he'd been using to grease himself up for ten years now. He glances at the wagon, on the far side of the fire, and lets out a heavy breath. "Hang on." Setting her flat on her back, Five teleports to their wagon, digging through it briefly before returning with the heavy, pump-action bottle. Depositing a generous amount in his palm, he rubs the lotion between his fingers as he leans over Dolores, braced on one arm.

"If this hurts," Five says seriously, cautiously, "Or if you don't like it, or... we can always figure something else out, okay?" He looks down at Dolores, fingers poised but not touching her, not daring to without her permission.  
  
Dolores nods and gives him a soft noise of assent. "I know," she murmurs, her breath shuddering. "I know you won't hurt me, Five." 

It's not that she can be stretched out or prepared in the traditional sense, but making sure the channel is slick and warm from Five's fingers will be beneficial for them both, and cause much less chafing. She knew that on a mechanical level, but what she couldn't prepare herself for was the incredible pleasure of his fingers slipping into her. The hole is only wide enough for two with only a fraction of a centimeter of space leftover that gives him the room to spread and scissor his fingers slightly, and every time his nails scrape against the hard metal sides of her hole, she lets out a yelp of pleasure. 

Her voice echoes in his mind, so loud that for a moment he forgets that he's the only one who can hear her, and worries that her noises will attract predators, high pitched and trembling as it is. "Oh-- oh _Five_ \--" she moans desperately, pleasure flushing any lingering doubts or fear out of her mind, like brushing cobwebs out of corners with a broom. Her entire body blooms with heat, and he's so consumed by their shared romantic illusion that he could swear he can feel her channel squeezing and pulsing around his fingers.  
  
Five feels hungry deep into his gut, hearing Dolores moan his name so open and freely. He uses a liberal amount of lotion, pressing his fingers into her until his hand grinds against the flat base of her torso. He coats her in lotion everywhere he can reach, the smooth metal of her hole warming to his touch, and the closeness to the fire. He hopes it'll be enough, he can only pray it'll be enough. But unable to help himself-- and maybe to postpone the inevitable, his first time in so long meaning the stakes were just as high for him as they were for her-- Five dips his head to capture one of those pert nipples in his mouth. 

HIs tongue drags flat across the tightened bud, knowing it can't relax but taking pleasure in the way he can feel Dolores' entire body seize with the sudden touch. He can feel it like a vice clamping in his brain, as viscerally as he could feel his own pleasure, his hand continuing to thrust into her and twist, while his teeth and tongue work her into a lather, hoping to push her as close to incoherent as he knew how to do, his cock twitching and leaking between them, now untouched.  
  
"Five! Five-- oh-- _oh_ Five, yes, _yes_ my darling-- my love--" her voice is unsteady, crooning and soft and overwhelmed. He can feel her quake under him, he can feel how warm her hole has gotten with his probing fingers injecting his own body heat into the metal. He can feel her breath shuddering against his ear, and as if her hand had lifted to do it itself, he can feel nails run along his arm and up to the back of his neck. In his mind he can see her laid out under him, her head thrown back and eyes closed tightly shut, her mouth open wide around a long string of moans. Her hand drags up his back to hold him by the neck, her fingers tangling in his hair, the base of her trunk angling up eagerly towards him. 

She cums, unexpectedly, a surprise to them both. She didn't know she could, and furthermore, neither did he. Living in a part of his brain that feels so separate from himself, Five feels the shockwaves of her pleasure when they overtake her, experiencing her orgasm for himself as if he'd been the one to have it, but he doesn't ejaculate nor does his cock go soft. It'll be something to ponder over the physiology of later, when he's not hunched over the woman he's wild about. 

Dolores thrashes under him as she hits an abrupt peak, her voice shattering with a sob of pleasure. Feeling his own heartbeat in his fingers, it only adds to the illusion that she's clenching around him, squeezing and sucking on those digits inside her. Her head tips to the side, laying on the bedroll with a whine as his fingers pull out of her, sticky and wet, and leave her shaking and struggling just to catch her breath.  
  
The look of wonder on Five's face is obvious, astonishment clear on his face as he watches Dolores writhe and roil beneath him, as if he'd struck her with a live cattle prod. He can't help but watch in wonder as she comes undone, as visceral and real as anything else he'd come to see of her. She was beautiful, there was no mistaking that, and Five can't help but crave that beauty for himself like a predator craving a meal. He has her, he knows, their confessions earlier more than proof of that-- But he wanted more than words, more than acknowledgement. Feeling his gut turn hot like lava, Five feels that vice grip of iron clench in him again. 

He needed to feel Dolores. All of her. 

Dolores' breath is quiet and soft, the delicate panting of a woman who had experienced a true loss of control. Five wants nothing more than to taste her, to tuck his fingers into his mouth and lick himself clean of what he knows is her-- but rationality, stops him. Lotion, it was lotion. He doesn't feel the loss he might expect to, though, not when there's a meal laid out in front of him, panting and willing. 

"I want to fuck you," Five mutters, his voice little more than a growl as he leans back, his wet hand dragging across his cock to slick himself up again, head shiny and red and long-since leaking with precum, so sensitive it almost feels like it hurts. Dragging his tongue across his lip, Five leans back over Dolores to place a scorching kiss to her lips, breathing into her mouth, swallowing the desperate little pants of air she struggles to claim. "Can I?" He almost sounds nervous when he asks, like she might draw the line now, of all times.  
  
"Yes, _yes_ ," she pants against his lips, her breath shuddering as finely as the rest of her body. She grips at open air, unable to turn her hand to grab him, but he senses her struggle and grips her hand in his to satisfy her desperation to touch him. She swallows loudly, her head tipped back against the anemic cushion that Five folds in half to use as a pillow. "Please, Five... I want to feel you inside me. I've waited long enough, I'm ready."

Her hand squeezes around his, and she looks up with her eyes glittering, soft around the edges with the love she's felt for him for so many tireless years. She takes in the stubble on his cheeks, the slope of his wet bangs on his forehead, the intensity in his beautiful green eyes, and she sighs with the pleasure of just looking at him.  
  
Five doesn't need any more persuading. One slightly-shaking hand curled around the base of his cock, Five leans back to line himself up with Dolores' hole. The head of his cock jerks with the first touch, rubbing against her as she drips freely for him, slicked up and well-warmed from his fingers and the urgent motions of his hand. He takes the time to marvel at it, in awe of how he _does_ seem to fit, as slowly his head begins to press inside, mouth going slack and eyes going wide, engulfed in the way she consumes him, as openly and readily as if she was a cunt, living and warm.  
  
She gives a small little gasp, tight in her throat when he enters her. He has to lift the base of her torso up so he can fit all the way inside her, since her inorganic channel can't bend with the shape of him as he fills her, but he doesn't seem to mind compensating to meet her. It's a tight squeeze, just barely wide enough for him with only a whisper of room so he doesn't have to worry about chafing or pinching. It's like she was hand crafted to be perfect for him, her hole made to be the exact diameter of his cock, and the fit is so exquisite it makes her cry. 

"Oh Five-- _Five_ \--" she squeezes his hand again, tears filling her voice. "It feels-- feels-- oh--"  
  
All of Five's breath leaves him in one heavy gust as he seats himself in to the brim, the warmth of Dolores' base making him dizzy as it comes into contact with his hips, skin on skin, plastic all but forgotten in his mind and replace with living, breathing flesh-- It was all he could think about, and with dizzying clarity. The slick warmth of her canal, the tightness with which she grasps at him, the way her little gasps and stuttering makes her entire self clench around him.

Maybe this was no more than a dream supplied by his insanity, but if it was a figment, Five was goddamn impressed with his sense of imagination.

"Dolores," Five whispers desperately, and his arm slips around her waist to pull her up to meet him. It sinks her down lower on top of him, and Five eagerly closes the distance between them to kiss her, his hips thrusting as he begins to move-- Slow at first, but deep, barely restraint only barely managed, arms shaking with the effort to hold himself back.  
  
He can feel Dolores shuddering in his arms, her breasts pressed flat against his chest between them. She's still crying, joy filling her entire form so full it feels like she'll break apart with the pressure of it inside her. Five feels big inside her, filling her completely, there's no room inside her for anyone but Five, both figuratively and literally. She lets out a sob when he thrusts the first time, and when he holds her closer, her head tips against his shoulder and muffles her cries of pleasure. 

"Five-- Five! Oh-- oh darling-- oh-- _Five_ \--" She's chanting his name desperately, wrapped up in his arms, squeezed so tight that she's winded and breathless. "I can't-- can't-- you-- it's so good I'm--"

She's dizzy, her voice climbing so loud that if anyone but Five could hear it, predators would come crawling. As it is, her voice is reserved only for him, echoing off the concrete surrounding their camp, into his ears and only his ears. She exists for him, because of him, with him, and it's all she can do to hold on and cry out his name.  
  
"I got you, I'm here, _fuck_ , Dolores--" Five matches her words with a stumbling chorus of his own, although at a much lower pace, muffled into the side of her neck. His mouth kisses and drags against her skin, tasting the salt of her skin, tracing the lines of her neck and shoulder with his tongue, kissing and sucking and biting and breathing warmly against her as he begins to thrust up, arm around her waist guiding her down to meet his thrusts and forcing them both to moan brokenly in time with one another.

It's bliss, plain and simple. Five's entire body is warm with it, his brain gone to cotton from it. The fire at their backs are nothing compared to the burning in his gut as his hips begin to pick up speed and his arms begin to strain, holding Dolores still and arching into her with a steady snap of his hips. Her hole makes wet noises around him, lotion gathering around him, warming to his touch and dripping from her lewdly. Their little camp fills with the sounds of their lovemaking, the steady slap of skin on skin, punctuated by Five's terse, hungry moans. 

Pulling away to look her in the face, Five's eyes are frenzied and dark, overblown with lust and wild with desperation as he devours her lips with a kiss, "I love you," He whispers painfully between thrusts, pulling away only to gasp wetly for air, "I love you, Dolores, I love you, I love you--"  
  
"Love-- _love_ \--" she tries to return the affection, but she can't get her words out past the gasps of ecstasy. She can feel the shockwaves of his thrusts through her whole torso, every time he makes contact with the base of her trunk she can feel the impact all the way up to the top of her head. She would have been thrusted clear out of his arms by now if not for his firm grip around her waist, holding her against him at the perfect angle for him to fuck into her. 

She can feel her pleasure climbing again, between Five's cock and his lips at her throat, she's surrounded completely by him. His arms are strong and firm around her waist, and for a moment even she feels like a normal woman, held in the embrace of her lover. There's a dizzying flicker of genuine self-awareness that only lasts for a couple of seconds before she falls apart with a wail of pleasure, reaching her peak once more. 

It's hard to just write it off as imagination when Five could swear on his life that he feels Dolores clench around him, hot and soft and wet. He can feel her breath on his neck, he swears he can even feel the pressure of her arm winding around his neck, fingers sinking into his hair. It's all so unbelievably _real_.  
  
And why can't it be? What _is_ reality, anyway except for a set of rules enough people agree on? Who's to say she wasn't real? Wasn't HE the only thing alive in this goddamn wasteland? So why couldn't _Five_ decide who was real and who wasn't? Dolores was more real than Reginald was, more real than even his mother. Dolores challenged him and adored him, lavished him with compliments and called him out on his shit-- Dolores was a _person_ , regardless of the shape she took, or the composition of her materials. There was more to a person than what they were made of, surely.

So Five lets himself feel it, without shame. He lets himself gasp and hitch, lets himself moan openly into Dolores' neck as he hunches his shoulders and snaps his hips into her with a rutting, animalistic hunger. Driven by pure instinct alone, Five buries himself to the hilt again and again, holding her so tight she groans under the pressure of his arms. His wishes her skin had more give, teeth sinking into plastic not nearly as satisfying, and leaving no more of a mark than the tiniest of indents from where his canines had almost punctured their way through.

"Dolores, I'm-- I'm going to--" The brief panic of fear fills him as his stomach begins to clench and his hips begin to grow erratic, instinct running into overdrive as his balls tighten. Five traces a line of open-mouthed, wet kisses across her throat and up to her jaw, where he settles and bites another gentle string of kisses to her ear. Five's forehead presses against her temple, his eyes slipping shut as comes with a shout and no other words of warning, spilling his seed inside of her hole and _still_ fucking her through it.  
  
She's only making exhausted, squeaky little noises at this point, shaken and overwhelmed by him in every sense. She trembles kittenishly in his arms, pressed into him, brimming with love for the man on top of her as he finally starts to slow down, his bunched-up muscles all finally relaxing. He sags boneless on top of her, holding himself up on one elbow and looks down at her, at the fucked-out expression of bliss on her face, and watches as it slowly splits into a lazy, tired smile. 

"Oh, my love..." she whispers, and he can feel the ghost of her fingers running through his hair, her voice still shaking as she pants between her words. "That was... that was unbelievable. I never could have imagined..."

What context could a mannequin have ever daydreamed about sex? Only a human as clever and wild as Five could even think of a way to make it work, could love her enough to even want to try. The tears return, in tandem with laughter, delighted and overwrought. She loves him so much it hurts in her chest, like there's just not enough room inside her for it.  
  
"Me neither," Five replies, despite Dolores not quite finishing her sentiment. She doesn't have to, has never had to. Explaining yourself was so unnecessary when there was an entire world shared between them, silently and intimately. Five knew Dolores just as well as he knew himself, felt her inside of him as surely as he felt his own astonishment, his own awe for what they had just done. There was no disgust or embarrassment, no dismay or concern....

It had been _amazing_. How long had Five imagined being with Dolores in this way? How many nights had he laid awake thinking about this moment, agonizing over the what ifs and if onlys? And now Five was little more than a man filled with love, his smile lazy, the arms around Dolores' waist going slack.

With great reluctance, Five pulls Dolores off of his cock, unable to watch the filthy way she leaks sluggishly with his cum, dripping on the fine silt that covered the ground. She was a mess. He'd _made_ her a mess. Gingerly, Five lays her on her back on the mattress beneath them both, careful to make sure her arm was comfortable, her back stable. Maybe it would be the gentlemanly thing to clean her up immediately, but what was the rush? 

Instead, Five lays down behind Dolores, arm curling around her waist as he pulls her back flush to his chest, chin hooking over her shoulder, breath tickling behind her ear, "You're spectacular," Five murmurs freely, adoringly, feather-light kisses tickling across her earlobe, "Incredible."  
  
She giggles ticklishly, her shoulder raising to playfully nudge away his advances, every inch of her skin too sensitive, too sticky and warm and raw-- but she would never dream of actually chasing him away. She'd done enough of that over the last several weeks. 

"I wonder what that girl in the department store window would think if she could see me now," she says, laughing giddily.  
  
"Knowing her?" Which Five didn't, "Nothing." 

Curling around Dolores protectively, Five smiles as he blows into her ear, leaning in even as she shies him away with a fluttering shrug of her shoulder, kissing lavishly wherever he can reach: Behind her ear, across her jaw, down her neck and across her shoulder, nowhere was safe from Five's stubbled jaw and smiling kisses, none of which last for long. His hand raises to hold Dolores across her chest, one hand fully planted on her breast as he keeps her held back against him. Even if she could fight against him, there would be none of it today, calloused fingers gently dragging across the delicate swell, his nose tucking into her shoulder, his eyes closing. 

"You're something else, Dolores," He breaths reverently, sighing as every muscle in his body does, indeed, relax, allowing the warmth from the fire to wash over him in heavy, thick waves, making the air thick and cottony, his head soon to follow, "No one could come close even if they wanted. They don't have it in them."  
  
"You're right about that," she grins from ear to ear, returning his kisses as he pulls the covers up over them and nestles himself down against her back like a bird building a nest.

It doesn't matter that there's no one else left alive who could take her place. It doesn't matter that technically Dolores is his only option. There's not a whisper of those insecurities left, and she feels like a fool for ever having them in the first place. She knows now that even if the world was filled with women desperate for Five's attention, he would have eyes only for her.


End file.
